July 10, 2008

I Failed…Again…Thank God

A situation arose that someone I knew had purposefully not wanted to discuss an incident some time back. At the time, I had no idea why we hadn’t talked about this incident, as it was somewhat of a major happening. But no one had anything to say. A few days passed and finally I had to speak up and ask what was going on; even then it was like pulling teeth.

Today after conversing with some people, it became apparent that the reason we weren’t addressing the problem was that the person in question didn’t want to discuss it because it was a failure. A failure that the person placed on their own actions. Now regardless of who was “at fault,” this matter needed to be addressed. There were too many things that went without answers otherwise. But all those things in the air were simply going to drop, all because of the inability to acknowledge failure.

This is intentionally vague.

Here’s the problem. Everyone fails. No one has a perfect record. Sorry, it doesn’t happen. The pride and hubris that permeate throughout business scare me. Remember the Emperors New Clothing? Well these are similar situations. We have to start admitting fault, and accept that it’s part of the job. What’s the worst that can happen? You get fired? That is extremely unlikely. And if it does happen, it’s probably for the best. You don’t want to work for someone that can’t understand a mistake.

What’s most important is understanding why something failed. This is key to improvement. And you can’t know those things without acknowledging failure.

The funny thing? From what I’ve seen, the people who admit fault and acknowledge failure tend to make the fewest mistakes.